We are currently undergoing updates to our site and are working to improve your experience on all devices that you use throughout your day. If you should find a page or a story that is not working correctly, please click here.

Thank you for your patience,

TribLIVE.com Team

The Pirates entered Wednesday with just three quality starts from their staff in 13 games, the woes continuing early this week as starters James McDonald and Jonathan Sanchez struggled on back-to-back nights against St. Louis.

Manager Clint Hurdle needed good news, and he received it Wednesday, as No. 2 starter Wandy Rodriguez was announced as the team's starter for Friday's game against Atlanta at PNC Park.

The left-hander threw a bullpen session prior to Wednesday's game against St. Louis and was ruled well enough to make his next start. He left the team's April 8 game in Arizona after 2 1⁄3 innings with a tweaked hamstring. In two starts he's allowed one run over nine innings.

Minor leaguer suspended

The Triple-A International League on Wednesday suspended Pirates minor leaguer Jerry Sands for one game after an incident during a game Tuesday night in Toledo, Ohio. Sands, 25, is an outfielder with the Indianapolis Indians.

“There was a verbal dispute between a fan and Jerry Sands during which Jerry briefly entered into the stands,” Pirates GM Neal Huntington said. “The situation was quickly resolved without further incident, as the fan was ejected for his actions. We do not condone Jerry's actions and support the league's decision to suspend him for one game.”

The incident began when a fan threw peanuts at Indy infielder Brandon Inge, the local newspaper reported.

Before the fifth inning, a fan went to the railing and exchanged words with Inge, and some of Indy players also got involved. The newspaper reported that after Sands tried to get into the stands, the fan tried to dump beer on the players and was escorted out of the stadium.

Indy broadcaster Will Flemming tweeted that Inge tried to defuse the situation by handing out baseballs to a few fans.

Inge, who signed as a free agent in February, is on a minor league rehab assignment with Indy, and he was back in the lineup Wednesday. The Pirates acquired Sands on Dec. 26 from the Boston Red Sox as part of the Joel Hanrahan trade.

Backward, then forward, for JMac?

McDonald is pitching backward more often early this season, meaning he is throwing off-speed pitches in fastball counts and throwing those pitches more often.

In 2011, McDonald's fastball averaged 92.7 mph, according to Fangraphs.com, and he threw the pitch on 54 percent of his offerings. This season, McDonald is averaging 89.8 mph with his four-seam fastball and is throwing the pitch 35.7 percent of the time.

Is this a pitcher with a new plan? Or a pitcher losing confidence in his fastball?

“When you don't do good, it looks like they lack confidence,” Hurdle said. “When they do well, like he did a couple times last season (throwing backward), breaking balls early, fastballs up top late, then it looks like a confident guy that has command.”

Like Rodriguez, McDonald also threw prior to Wednesday's game and again claimed he is healthy.

“It went all right. It was a normal side,” McDonald said.

A homecoming of sorts

Although Matt Adams grew up in Phillipsburg, about a three-hour drive from PNC Park, the Pirates passed on him in the 2009 draft. The St. Louis Cardinals picked him in the 23rd round and made him the first Slippery Rock product to reach the major leagues.

Adams said he didn't mind being skipped over by the Pirates, even though he practically grew up in their backyard.

“It's something that could've happened but didn't, so you've just got to move on,” said Adams, who made his big league debut last season. “I'm happy here with the Cardinals.”

Adams rose rapidly through the minors, slugging 82 home runs over four seasons. He made the Cardinals' Opening Day roster and already has three homers and four multi-hit games.

Slippery Rock plans to retire Adams' uniform No. 25. “It's an honor because there's a lot of great guys who went through that program,” Adams said.

With their 23rd-round pick in 2009, the Pirates drafted outfielder Jose Hernandez, who no longer is in the organization.

You are solely responsible for your comments and by using TribLive.com you agree to our
Terms of Service.

We moderate comments. Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we provide a space where readers can share intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers.

We value thoughtful comments representing a range of views that make their point quickly and politely. We make an effort to protect discussions from repeated comments either by the same reader or different readers

We follow the same standards for taste as the daily newspaper. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence, proselytizing and SHOUTING. Don't include URLs to Web sites.

We do not edit comments. They are either approved or deleted. We reserve the right to edit a comment that is quoted or excerpted in an article. In this case, we may fix spelling and punctuation.

We welcome strong opinions and criticism of our work, but we don't want comments to become bogged down with discussions of our policies and we will moderate accordingly.

We appreciate it when readers and people quoted in articles or blog posts point out errors of fact or emphasis and will investigate all assertions. But these suggestions should be sent
via e-mail. To avoid distracting other readers, we won't publish comments that suggest a correction. Instead, corrections will be made in a blog post or in an article.